Self-censorship of regime support in authoritarian states: Evidence from list experiments in China

Abstract

The study of popular support for authoritarian regimes has long relied on the assumption that respondents provide truthful answers to surveys. However, when measuring regime support in closed political systems there is a distinct risk that individuals are less than forthright due to fear that their opinions may be made known to the public or the authorities. In order to test this assumption, we conducted a novel web-based survey in China in which we included four list experiments of commonly used items in the comparative literature on regime support. We find systematic bias for all four measures; substantially more individuals state that they support the regime with direct questioning than when presented with our indirect list experiments. The level of self-censorship, which ranges from 24.5 to 26.5 percentage points, is considerably higher than previously thought. Self-censorship is further most prevalent among the wealthy, urban, female and younger respondents.

Re-evaluating Political Trust: The Impact of Survey Nonresponse in Rural China

“…11 Ren 2009. 12 Hoddie 2008Shi 1997;Zhu 1996. 13 Lei and Lu 2017;Robinson andTannenberg 2019. 14 Landry andShen 2005;Li, Lianjiang 2003, 662.…”

The politics of state celebrations in Belarus

“…I have found it is methodologically problematic to elicit people's attitudes via direct questioning in Belarus, given the varying nature of self‐censorship on political topics. Similar to other researchers working in autocratic regimes (Robinson & Tannenberg, 2019), I have questioned how accurate and truthful people's answers are during discussions conducted in an unfamiliar semi‐public setting with people outside one's network. Explorations on self‐censorship indicate that people consciously respond to authoritarian political conditions and calculate risks of displaying controversial opinions.…”

Economic inequality, income, and their effects on electoral and civil society participation in authoritarian regimes

“…Self-censorship of political preferences and regime support in authoritarian regimes can produce a significant bias on questions regarding the citizen-regime relationship (e.g., Robinson and Tannenberg 2019;Tannenberg 2017). The potential of selfcensorship may be more problematic in more autocratic regimes (Tannenberg 2017, p. 21).…”

“…Unfortunately, the WVS does not ask a question on the perceived survey sponsor or on interviewer evaluations of the respondents' demeanor. In addition, Robinson and Tannenberg (2019) found that the level of self-censorship ranges from 24.5-26.5 percentage points in China and is more prevalent among the wealthy, urban, young respondents. However, these rates of self-censorship apply for highly repressive regimes, such as China, and are more relevant for more sensitive questions, such as trust in the ruling party, or perception for democracy.…”